Interviewed by Virginia Haryott (VH), Peter Ruffles (PR)
Date: 03/06/1993
Transcribed by Eve Sangster
Hertford Oral History Group
Recording no: O1993.4
Interviewee: Mrs. Anne Turnbull
Interviewers: Virginia Haryott, Peter Ruffles
Date of Interview 3rd June 1993
Venue: 3, Lower Hacketts, Brickendon Lane, Hertford
Transcribed by Eve Sangster
Typed by Eve Sangster
additions: Marilyn Taylor 2013
The transcription is verbatim except for one or two inconsequential comments and interruptions.
AT: Oh yesterday, have you been to the Greyhound in Bengeo
VH: No I…..
AT: We just stopped at the first place we came to it looked bright and cheerful a reduction for OAP’s. All the specials they did with creamed potatoes and three vegetables plus a sweet or coffee for £2.99. I haven’t had a meal like that anywhere
VH: Yes
AT: Yes I didn’t believe it
VH: How marvellous £2.99 !
AT: Yes I didn’t believe it
VH: Amazing isn’t it! How absolutely incredible!
There is then a discussion on clipping on the microphone
AT: I will have a coffee ************* Lunch because Mr Bagg? has just been, he’s taken a couple of my chairs away to mend
VH: Oh Good
AT: and if I get any time I will go and sort through some clothes upstairs ready
VH: Lovely great yes
AT: Have you time to give us ten minutes afterwards when we have finished before you go? We have various questions
VH: what have I got to do…….yes I have absolutely yes
AT : I will bring the coffee……………if you shake it
Then a gap
VH: Peter how long have you lived in Hertford?
PR: Well, 50 years.
AT: Yes he’s a real local Peter is
VH: Have you?
PR: We've lived in my house in Hertingfordbury Road since it was built at the turn of the century but grandfather was born opposite and they've lived, my family, for 200 years in
Hertingfordbury Road, near to the hospital. But in the St. Andrew's churchwardens' records of the 1700’s my widowed grandmothers, great, great grandmothers were receiving charity from the churchwardens as “poor old widows of Hertingfordbury Road”. And the address has always been Hertingfordbury Road.
VH: And that's never changed?
PR: No, well, 1780.
AT: My father's widowed mother (Harriet Elizabeth Cole-Hamilton nee Tisdall) went to the Moat House, Hertingfordbury and that's where he and his brothers were all brought up. And that's how he met my mother who lived at Bayfordbury.
VH: Shall we have our coffee first before we start? You are all clued up then!
AT: (Anne shows a, portrait and. reads the inscription), William Baker, Esq., M.P. You don't think I look like him, do you? I'm told I look like her.
VH: I was going to say, the long face. There might be a resemblance.
AT: When I had long hair, I always had to go to fancy dress dances with it all piled up.
VH: Is that ……….. She's got- a hat on there, though, hasn't she?
AT: Nol, it's a mobcap.
VH: Oh how lovely. That’s fun isn’t it? Right you come and sit in this chair Anne and then I can pop this on to you and then we’ll…………….
AT: What do you want me to do?
VH: If you just sit here by Badger because this is a little tiny microphone and if we just clip that on
AT: And that’s all you have to do. Just sit and converse………….
PR: And then forget it!
VH: I was going to say to Peter that, your Bayfordbury …. you were actually born in South Africa, weren't you?
AT: Yes, my father came from Hertingfordbury. He and his widowed mother and five boys, they all lived at the Moat House, Hertingfordbury.
VH: Didn't that belong to another sort of old family?
AT: Yes, the Cowper’s of Panshanger.
VH: They owned the Moat House at that time, did they?
AT: They did and they were great friends. Lady Cowper and my grandmother were great friends and so they came there and that's how my father met Mummy, who was a daughter of Bayfordbury.
VH: Wasn't she the only daughter?
AT: No! Estina was the older one. Mummy was the younger. And there was Harry, the squire, who became the squire, and Estina and then there was Osbert who was killed in the first war, and Hugh – I can't remember what happened to Hugh, and then my mother. They were a big family.
Transcribers note. There were 7 Clinton-Baker children born in the following order Henry William who Anne mentions as Harry, Lewis, Estina Ann, Osbert, Geoffrey, John Hugh who Ann mentions as Hugh who dies in 1905 in Cairo Egypt aged about 30 and Katherine Edith who was Anne’s mother. A family tree will be with this file.
VH: She was the youngest, wasn't she? And your Granny was really rather domineering, wasn't she?
AT: Oh very! And very 'County' too. Yes!
VH: And then your mum married and went off to South Africa.
AT: Yes! Married my father whose mother had moved to the Moat House, Hertingfordbury. She was a widow and her son, George, married my mother.
VH: Right. And George went off to start a farm.
AT: Oh, yes! He and his eldest brother both went off to farm in the Orange Free State.
VH: And out your mother went,which was ….
AT: Out she went and loved it. Rode side-saddle everywhere. Courage was marvellous.
VH: They started a farm out there, did they? What sort of thing ********
AT: Yes! I can't quite remember how they did it, the two brothers, Harry and George, the eldest two from Hertingfordbury, went out there and farmed on the veldt, south of Johannesburg.
VH: And eventually your father - wasn't he shot or wasn't he ill? He wasn't very fit, was he?
AT: No, they mucked up his appendix when he was young.
VH: Oh, I see. Not while he was in South Africa.
AT: No, no, no, he was marvellous out there and he was in charge of about forty native police in Basutoland.
VH: And then he decided to comeback?'
AT: They'd let the farm, you see. He did that as his war job and then Granny was getting old and they thought it would be better to come back. By that time, they'd got four daughters, you see.
VH: That was when you came back to Bayfordbury and lived there.
AT: Well, we lived in the nursery wing for a while because my other grandmother, my father's mother, lived in Hertingfordbury, at the Moat House.
VH: She was still living there when you came back.
AT: No she died, I can't remember, in nineteen something or other ..... We came back and lived in the nursery wing at Bayfordbury and had to go down every evening in our tidy clothes and see Granny and do the right things.
Transcribers note : Harriett Cole-Hamilton died in 1913 while the family were still in Africa
VH: How many people would have worked at Bayfordbury, then?
AT: Oh there seemed to be an enormous staff. We used to have family prayers every morning.
VH: Whereabouts would those have been? In the hall, as you went in? Where would you hold the prayers?
AT: Oh in the dining-room with all the chairs put out in a row for the staff and a row for us.
VH: And what about the Kit Kat pictures? They're very famous.
AT: They're lovely, yes. They were inherited.
VH: Where did they get those from? I can't remember.
AT: Oh,. I've got it all written down somewhere but I forget the dates. They enlarged the house to take ….there's the Kit Kat room on one side and the library on the other. It was just like that to
begin with, (gestures presumably) and then it got stretched out.
VH: And all the Kit Kat pictures were hung there. When did they get moved? When the estate was sold? The estate was sold, wasn't it, at the end of the war?
AT: Ask Kitty. She's better on all this, 'cos I wasn't always here. Kitty was at Bayford all the time but um……Bayfordbury
VH: It was Uncle Harry, wasn't it?
AT: Uncle Harry you see, he never married, and his brother, Lewis, who was an admiral, married late and. they had a son called. William …. that's my cousin Bil1y, and he inherited and I think he ….
VH: Didn't he go to New Zealand. or somewhere?
AT: Oh, yes, they all scattered.
VH: …. packed up and sold the whole of the Bayfordbury estate at the end of the war.
AT: I think so. Yes, yes, that was it.
VH: Was the house used for anything in the war, the house?
AT: The house? I don't know. We weren't here. I don't know what did Bayfordbury do. My grandmother was still alive. You mean the fourteen-eighteen war?
VH: No! No!
AT: Oh, this last war? Aunt Rosa was in charge then. Uncle Dibbin inherited and Aunt Rosa was in charge.
VH: She lived there, did she, then?
AT: I thinks so. Ask Kitty! She's better at it than I am.
VH: Anyway after you were in Bayfordbury, you came to live at Hacketts, didn't you?
AT: First of all, Sewards, down the road. We rented Sewards. I think my parents simply couldn't take the nursery wing at Bayfordbury any more, and Dad got a job with Trust Houses as district manager for the Home Counties.
VH: Tell Peter about the Trust Houses, how they came about.
AT: I'm not very sure but they started after the first war and I know Lord Lytton was a great mover in it. He was at Cambridge with my father and a great friend of his, and Daddy got the job as district manager for the Home Counties in Trust Houses.
Transcribers note: The White Horse Hertingfordbury became a Trust House
VH: But the business of setting up the Trust Houses, didn't you say, was done for women so that they had some safe place - a trust house, that they could go safely on their own?
AT: With a manager oh yes
VH: That’s how the name Trust House came about
AT: I suppose yes Lord Lytton had a lot to do with it a great friend of my fathers, he lived at Knebworth it just happened I can’t quite remember
VH: and his son started the Trust Houses
PR: I hadn’t realised that the name……
VH: That’s the name yes…..because Anne’s father was what you say the manager ….
AT: District manager for all the home counties yes
VH: You have told me this before that it was set up literally so that the women would have somewhere safe to go
AT: Oh it was quite alright and they all had a resident manager, you see, and Head Office in London and a district manager like my father who had several under him ………..from Epping to Huntingdon to Essex I can’t remember how many daddy had but it was ………..I used to go round with him in the holidays a lot in the car and that was always great fun
VH: Visiting them all, checking up, Yes. But going back to Hacketts, Anne. I mean, you went to Seward's first?
AT: We went to Seward's. We rented it from the Pearson’s.
VH: And the Pearson’s lived at Brickendonbury, didn't they? And they owned Seward's Farm?
AT: Yes, we didn't farm it. We only had the house. And it gave us somewhere, a base, to live and for Mummy and Daddy to get out of Bayfordbury nursery wing. Granny was still alive and pretty fierce.
VH: And I should think after all those years in South Africa, away from the family, it was a bit claustrophobic.
AT: Yes, I think it was a bit. Yes! And then we found Hacketts.
VH: Oh, yes, opposite the church here.
AT: And they were longing to farm again, Daddy and Mummy. We got 30 acres with it.
VH: what sort of thing did you……..
AT: We just had a few milking cows. We didn't do any ploughing. It was all grass.
VH: And you, didn't you have a …. You never went to school, did you, here?
AT: No, we had governesses. Mummy had always had governesses so we had governesses. I longed to go to school. When I left the schoolroom, Mary and. Elizabeth went to the North Middlesex School for Girls at Enfield and we had the train, you see, from Bayford.
VH: Oh, right. You walked to the station. No nonsense about being given a lift, in those days. Can you remember what schools there would have been in Hertford at that time?
AT: Just the Hertford Grammar School, but I think that was at Ware. There was Christ's Hospital but that was very precious, you see, unless you had a long history of needing help.
VH: I thought there was a small school in ….
AT: Cowbridge?
VH: Yes, Cowbridge, was it?
AT: I don't know. We had a charming governess, who lived in Hertford who came up every day. Or we fetched her. Or she came by train. I can't remember. Yes, I never went to school. I longed to go to school. I thought it would be such fun. But, no, Mummy had never been to school so we didn't go to school. And, I suppose it was cheaper with three daughters,………. four daughters.
Transcriber’s Note: Pronounced here Har’ford
VH: Yes, well. I suppose it was. But when you were living in Hackett’s what sort of thing did you do in the holidays?
AT: Oh we just thoroughly enjoyed it. We loved it. Open-air life and we had ponies.
VH: You did a lot of riding and did you socialise with a lot of people, you know, round about?
AT: There were lots of friends around, yes.
VH: Didn't you tell me once that you went to the Mayflower for dancing classes or something?
AT: Hertingfordbury! Yes, in the Memorial Hall at Hertingfordbury.
VH: And how did you get there?
AT: In the pony trap usually. From here, wet or fine.
VH: Wet or fine you clip clopped down the road,
AT: Dressed up!
VH: The Memorial Hall? Would that, be the same as the Mayflower?
PR: Yes it was the village hall up until ……….**********
AT: What is it now?
PR: Now called The Mayflower
AT: Oh, is it? It: was built by the Cowpers as a memorial hall I think and Lady Cowper and my grandmother, Cole-Hamilton grandmother, were very great friends and, umm ….
VH: So the Cowper family gave the hall, well, the Memorial Hall ….
AT: Had it built in memory of sons killed in an earlier war, I think because their portraits are hanging up. It's a lovely hall.
PR: Yes, a lovely, big, lofty hall. It's still used by the village, as a village hall but it's called Mayflower.
AT: Yes, I know. I don't know why!
VH: I don't know why it was changed to that, either. Anyway, who used to teach you the dancing? Can you remember?
AT: Oh, somebody from London came down with her trainee assistant and somebody else played the piano.
VH: Oh, how killing!
AT: Oh, it was priceless! *********** There were masses of us there. A lot of young from round here. Well, the Turners; do you know who I mean by the Turners? Gladys Turner and her brothers. They all came. We were all rather the same age.
VH: Where were they from?
AT: Well, they finished up at Bramfield. I've forgotten where they lived before that.
VH: Oh, how killing! So, you were all taught how to ….
AT: Oh, yes. All the young of Hertfordshire. There were quite a lot too.
Transcriber’s Note: Pronounced here Har’fordsha’!
VT: Well imagine you had to. You had. no television.. then and you had to organise leisure of one sort or another. And can you remember any of the shops in Hertford at that time, Anne.
AT: Yes, Neal's Bon Marchè, (laughs), if you know where that is?
PR: Yes next to the Shire Hall on the opposite corner.
VH: And what did they sell?
AT: Well, Graveson was the shop!
VH: Oh, it was the shop was it? Your clothes and anything like that?
AT: Yes, that was it. Neal's was considered not quite so up-market. It wasn't quite so smart as Graveson's. (Laughs!) Hertford was full of snobs, and it still I, I think! Hertfordshire is.
VH: A, lot of big family homes in Hertfordshire, aren't there?
AT: And the husbands went up to London and earned. The money and the families all lived in the country. Yes, there were a lot of big houses …. .
VH: Well there were round about here weren’t there
AT: You’ve got a spider, that’s lucky. Oh possibly, we found quite a lot of young people and we went to a weekly dancing class at Hertingfordbury on Mondays. Run by …. somebody organized it. We used to do dumbbells, skipping and then learn the five positions, or whatever it is, and learn to dance. Oh dear it was funny and we, having been brought up on ponies on the veldt in South Africa, found it all very strange, settling down to a Hertfordshire life. But we did it!
VH: Well, you, had to didn’t you! But living in the village at that time, you know, the church wouldn't have been built at that time, would it?
AT: Oh, no! We were in All Saints, Hertford, or Bayford.
VH: Oh, right, because, yes, at that time, we were under All Saints. We weren't joined with Bayford, were we?
AT: No! Are we now?
VH: We are now, yes.
AT: We are now, yes.
VH: But we have our own church now. You know the Domain Saunders! Didn't they start off at the golf club in Brickendon? Didn't he? The old man?
AT: I never heard that. I never knew much about him.
VH: They then built Fanshawes, didn't they? He actually built it.
AT: Had it built, yes.
VH: And then there was some story about he had it built because he didn't want his coffin carried down the windy stairs at Brickendon Grange And then, in the end, I think, the funny part was he died in church!
AT: Died in church. I believe I heard that, yes. Do have a cake or biscuit. You have one!
Biscuits are offered
VH: And the pub in the village in Brickendon.
AT: Oh, we had two. Next door to each other. The Farmer's Boy and ….
VH: What's the one next door called? Is it, The Five- Horseshoes?
AT: That's right. I think it's called The Five Horseshoes. And there were two cottages attached to .... which is the far one from here?
VH: The Farmer's Boy!
AT: Yes! The Farmer's Boy! Yes, there were two cottages there which were let out. Somebody's gardener lived in one.
VH: Was there ever a shop in ….
AT: No, never. You could buy chocolate in non-licensing hours from one of the pubs. Two pubs.
VH: You could go in and buy chocolate?
AT: If you knocked on the door, the back door, they would seell you some, but we never had a shop.
VH: Never had a shop in the vi1lage?
AT: No!
VH: But also opposite the pub, originally, was a pond, wasn't there, where you could ….
AT: Isn't there a pond now?
VH: No!
AT: Not at all? Oh, it's gone.
VH: It was filled in many years ago.
AT: Oh, yes, it was quite a big pond. You could drive a horse and cart through it. Yes! Yes, you see, everybody had farm carts and pony-traps. And, I suppose they decided it was kind on the horses to have some where they could walk through and drink.
VH: Didn't you say there was somewhere you could tie them on, a sort of rail?
AT: Yes, there was a white rail in the pond, you see, to stop people taking carts into the deeper parts. Wish I had some photographs. We haven't any. One never did take any or think of ….
VH: No well you don’t do you……………
AT: Do have a cake dear…………or a biscuit
VH: You have one
AT: Yes, these look jolly good, don't they, Badger?
VH: Did you have dogs then, Anne, lots of dogs at Hacketts?
AT: We had Labradors and Spaniels, yes.
VH: Not one like you, Badger, no. Certainly not!
AT: No, we didn't have a Badger then. We had a fox terrier, I think. You're much nicer (to dog).
VH: Was there a cinema in Hertford?
AT: There was a cinema down near the Castle gates. Oh, it was incredible, kept breaking down, you know, at times. And the …. we had the Hertford Operatic &. Dramatic Society who used to put on one straight play and very often a Gilbert & Sullivan or something.
VH: In the cinema?
AT: No! In the Corn Exchange! And they were very lucky because the music master at Haileybury, Hilton Stewart, who was a charming person, he used to come and do the musical side and get the orchestra going. Oh we had great fun. It was always great fun. The little season we used to have.
VH: The little season?'
AT: Well, we called it, you know …. it used to be for so many performances at a certain time of year.
VH: Oh,. I see, yes! And down you'd go and watch it. Not still in ?????? When did your father …. I mean, obviously they had cars then. I mean, did he have a car when you came back from South Africa? He must have had a car to have driven round all these hotels and things, mustn't he?
AT: Yes, he was provided with a car and we provided the petrol, you know, but we had a pony-trap for everything. We used to drive to Hertingfordbury, every Monday, for dancing lessons in the
Memorial Hall there, in the pony-trap; all wrapped up and tidy clothes underneath. Very tough life! But it was very cold work?? sometimes.
VH: I would think it was in the middle of winter in a pony trap.
PR: So the effect of the estates was quite wide. From Bayfordbury, the communities around were all touched by the central life of Bayfordbury?
VH: Bayfordbury extended. Well, of course, the whole of Bayford village was owned by ….
AT: Owned by Bayfordbury, practically, yes
.
VH: And then, obviously, there was Bayfordbury Park Farm and then there was …. did they own anything in Hertingfordbury or did it stop at ....
AT: Lea Side and Roxford. Leaside Cottage, where the Bagnall’s live and up to Roxford.
VH: Oh they owned all those as well.
PR: And, of course, The Baker Arms in the village of Bayford is still there, isn't it?
AT: Oh, yes, it is. And practically the whole of Bayford belonged to my ancestors. And they built the church.
PR: A lovely church!
AT: Isn't it lovely? And, you see, Hubert Parry was a cousin and had a great say in the design of that church. There was a church before that.
PR: On the same site, the previous church?
AT: Yes, I think so, yes. That's why the old graves are there and there's the Bayfordbury vault there, and everything,
PR: Yes, it's a lovely building. It looks so attractive.
AT: Oh, you do! I'm so glad you like it, yes. Hubert Parry was a cousin of my mother's, a quite close cousin, and he had a big say in it. He said, "You must have it high enough, for the sound. And you must do, this, and you must do that!”
PR: When …. The vicar was Father Brown at one time ….
AT: Yes, yes, I remember Father Brown.
PR: Lovely white hair! I used; to come up to Bayfordbury with an aunt who played the organ for a while at Bayford Church, when I was 4 or 5 or 6 and she would drive out from Hertford to play.
AT: Oh,. did she? Because Mummy used to have to play it in the school holidays. Before that the schoolmaster used to play it if he was about.
PR: Well, Renè Williams I think, she was probably not the regular organist for a long time but there was a period when she used to play and I remember his, kindly face. He used to come and peer into the car as we were about to drive off.
AT: Mr. Brown, you mean?
PR: Mr. Brown, yes! And then others in my family talked about coming, walking out to Bayford …. you've been talking about coming from Bayford into Hertford for things but they came up for 'penny readings. I don't know where these Penny readings were. They paid a penny ….
AT: You must ask my sister Kitty, for she has hardly ever left the neighbourhood.
PR: Yes, I wonder where they could have been held? In what kind of room? But I remember hearing that they would walk up through Hertingfordbury. Probably in someone's house.
AT: Yes, of course, Lea Side and Roxford were both inhabited by …. did you know them, any of' them? The Bagnalls or the Hogg’s? Stewart Hogg?
PR: Yes, I've known Patience Bagnell quite well. Works in the museum. She lives at Roxford.
VH: Oh, right. She still lives at Roxford.
PR: I was just telling Anne, some of the people, older people, of my family walked out to Bayford. They would talk about the hilarious entertainments they laid on for each other as they walked home. They came to Bayford for penny readings, they paid a penny and then
AT: I wonder where they had it?
PR: I don’t know
AT: Whose house?
PR: “Penny readings” they were called
AT: They had 2 or 3 big houses. Kitty’s the person to ask. Can I have a top up?.
PR: Be interesting to know where they were
VH: Well Peggy Nicholson would know
Discussion about Peggy Nicolson as more tea/coffee is served
AT: she married and never left, well she lived in London for a year but didn’t enjoy it. Thank you my dear very much. You know we used to drive to the Memorial Hall in Hertingfordbury on a Monday for dancing class in a pony trap………..in the winter!
PR: Yes
AT: My mother was very tough
VH: I bet she was
AT: Have you been recording what I have been saying …….. Laughs
PR: Yes!
VH: Well yes it’s valuable, I think it’s an excellent idea because …once you are not here Anne we won’t remember half these little snippets
AT: No you see there’s a lot of history
VH: There is a lot of history
AT: and of course we were so intrigued having lived on a farm on the veldt and then in Basutoland where my father did his war job Chief Police Officer we hardly ever saw other people except ourselves
VH: Well I know you must have been a little strange family when you came back
AT: Yes we were in the nursery wing at Bayfordbury for a bit and that was hard work with granny in command
VH: Was there a squash court at Bayfordbury?
AT: Yes there was
VH: Who built that?
AT: Who built it? I think one of mothers brothers probably
VH: It’s still there I think
AT: Yes oh yes it was very popular
VH: What about the lovely trees at Bayfordbury?
AT: the Cedars?
END OF SIDE 1
SIDE 2
AT: …. Uncle Osbert's well. It's old, much older than that. It goes back to the Crimea, I think.
VH: Does it? Oh, good heavens!
AT: Yes.
VH: There must have been a lot of gardeners there, a. garden that big?
AT: At Bayfordbury? Oh,yes! They had. one garden to produce flowers. The terrace was all a mass of everything,at the right time; you know, red geraniums or whatever it might be. And the mowing was a big business, with a pony. The whole of the lawns had. a pony to mow it, yes.
VH: Those lovely stables at Bayfordbury, too. That's a wonderful stable block.
AT: Yes aren't they? Yes, and the cobbled yard! Such fun! And then the round pond and the rose trees all round it. It was beautifully planned.
VH: Was there a fountain in the middle of that round pond? No, there wasn't, no!
AT: Isn't there a small fountain? I think there is, yes.
VH: And then the wonderful walled garden where …. I mean, acres, just grew everything, all the fruits.
AT: Self-supporting entirely. And making the lake so lovely. And skating in the winter. Very popular! And there's a squash court, you. Know, a very nice squash court at Bayfordbury.
VH: Did you play squash
AT: I never learnt it but lots of people go there and are allowed to use it now ***************somewhere in the garage. I forget who has the key, somewhere in the garage.
VH: is it yes
AT: It used to be very popular in the winter with young people when you can’t play tennis
VH: Indoors
AT: Oh yes indoors, always very comfortable with the gals
VH: Did you play tennis ever, or not? Were you a tennis player?
AT: Not at Bayfordbury! I never remember tennis but we had a tennis court at Sewards and then at Hacketts. A grass one! And then the mowing of it. Ooh!.
VH: Was, that with the pony again?
AT: Not always. Sometimes ourselves. Oh, it was quite a different life, and, of course, in South Africa we lived on ponies but we didn't when we came back here. We just had one pony.
VH: Did you have bicycles? Were you allowed to cycle into Hertford?
AT: Yes, we had bicycles. Bit by bit we had bicycles, yes. Mummy raked up an old one at Bayfordbury which was priceless. The shape of it was so funny. But it was very comfy.
VH: And she rode it, did she, or not?
AT: Yes! She would ride it if necessary. She was a very brave person.
PR: How long had your family lived at Bayfordbury? When did they first………..
AT: Oh, 1700 or so, I think. Yes, I probably could look up and see if I've got a book. If I can find anything, I will.
PR: Well, yes, it's nice just to chat to you because you're giving us a lovely pictures, which is really much more important than dates because we can check dates.
AT: Funny little side issues. You can look up dates can’t you
VH: It’s just little things as you say……….cutting the lawns with a pony and things like that…………….
AT: Bayfordbury it was a great performance cutting that lawn. Never saw the Kit Kat room with the pictures hanging in it did you?
VH: No I didn’t, now of course half of them are in London aren’t they.
AT: In London yes the National Portrait Gallery, yes yes they all went up there.
VH: Beautiful collection
AT: They were lovely in the big dining room at Bayfordbury the Kit Kat room
VH: I bet it was……….. it was really another era Ann wasn’t it
AT: It was lovely and you can imagine coming from a bungalow in a veldt village in Basutoland to Bayfordbury.
VH: It must have been like Buckingham Palace!
AT: Yes we lived up in the nursery wing of course and received Granny every morning and we used to go down to family prayers in the dining room when all the staff had to come and sit opposite, and we sat the other side.
VH: But you could get to Bayford Church on a Sunday from Bayfordbury, sort of through the back, couldn't you?
AT; Through the parks. As long as you'd opened three gates, yes.
VH: Was there a road? You know the road that now goes to Bayfordbury ….
AT: Outside the park?
VH: Yes! Was that always there?
AT: Yes!
VH: That was a1ways there. And you had a drive ….
AT: Well, there was a private drive ….
VH: That took you all the way to the church?
.AT: Yes, and a much shorter journey too, and you had to open one, two, three, four gates, I think. But we did it.
VH: And did all the staff go? They were expected to?
AT: Oh, they were all expected to go, yes. They had their pew behind us and. They all had to go in turn.
VH: But, I mean the church in Bayford was given by ….
AT: Oh, that was built by Mummy's ancestors, yes.
PR: Would you have visited Panshanger regularly? You've mentioned the connection with the ….
AT: They were great friends yes
PR: And that was a different sort of estate, wasn't it Panshanger,?
AT: Oh, I think so, yes. Course, it was the Cowpers who lived there before and Lady-Cooper was a great friend of my Cole-Hamilton grandmother, so I believe, 'cos I was only just born, I think.
VH: You know sometimes you have somebody to paint here, you know what’s he called? he started his apprenticeship at Panshanger.
AT: Who’s this?
VH: He does work for you and Kitty
AT: Do you know who it is?
VH: I can’t remember his name but he lives in Staines Green
AT: You ought to go and ask Kitty a few questions she will probably remember more than I do
VH: I know I will ask her if she would mind because….
AT: Yes I think she would be very pleased to because she knows it all much better than I do.
PR: Well you have been marvellous
AT: I have always been nosey and I like to know everything!
PR: Well the right kind of person to report………
VH: Tell us about the other houses round Hertford. Because, in Balls Park, at that time ….
AT: They were Faudel Phillips!
VH: Now,you used to go to parties there, didn't you?
AT: Oh, yes. Very rich parties. We were told, you see, they're Jews and they've got a lot of money. We weren't allowed to discuss that or say we knew, you see.
VH: Oh,, I see. What, that they were Jews, you mean?
AT: Yes. They were Jews but Lady Faudel Phillips wasn't. She was, oh, some very high-powered county family, I think. Kitty will tell you all that. She knew the eldest daughter very well. I didn't take much notice of it all but I think Kitty did.
VH: I think she did because she never moved away did she
AT: She was the eldest, too, you see, so she got asked to
everything first.
VH: So how many children would they have had the Faudel Phillips?
AT: The Faudel-Phillips? I think they only had two girls or no heir, or something. I've forgotten.
VH: I think you told me that before. There were two girls,. Weren't there?
AT: I think so. Jean and …. no! Kitty was great friends with Jean. She can tell you about that.
VH: So you would go out there for a dance
AT: You ought to get Kitty on to this if she will, she is very reserved and shy and I don’[t think it would be any help but if she wouldm like me to come and help her along
VH: Well she might do it, certainly she might do it with Peter or Eve or somebody she would be another one……..
PR: We musn’t twist her arm ******
VH: No. It’s lovely with Anne, because she……….
AT: I’ll always talk!!
VH: You know you have an amazing memory for funny little things like that it is incredible
AT: Yes little incidents
VH: Yes you always do come up with the most amazing things
AT: It was such and intriguing life after living quietly on a farm in South Africa
VH: It must have been it really must have bene.
PR: Woodhall and the Abel Smiths, I suppose ….
AT: They were all well known in the family. I didn't get to know people so well, in Hertfordshire, as Kitty did. Because she came and settled, married, and had her family. I was working in London.
VH: But do you remember going to Woodhall?
AT: I don't remember it very well. A party or two, probably.
VH: But were the Pearson’s living at Brickendonbury at the time?
AT: Yes! We found them very hard to understand. It's very naughty of me to say all this.
VH: Well nobody’s going to find out Anne. They won’t know anything about it!
AT: But they were “nouveau riche”, as my family would have said d'you see?
VH: Yes., Where did he come from, Mr. Pearson? Do you remember what he made his ….
AT: Oh, George and,Sarah Pearson who came? I don't know ….
VH: They came from London or something?
AT: Somewhere like that, yes. And, settled there and bought that big house and a lot of land round and we rented the house down the road, from them, Sewards, yes and my father got a job with Trust Houses because he was at Cambridge with Lord Lytton who was one of his greatest friends and Lord Lytton was……………
PR: ************* (Juggling with teacups!)
AT: No you are not I will let you have it………….
PR: Bit of a balancing act yes…………
AT: It’s got cold anyhow
VH: Do you remember anything to do with all the breweries in Hertford, Anne?
AT: Well, Nicholls. Daddy liked Nicholls very much, the one in West Street. Daddy made friends with old Nicholls. Daddy'd make friends with anybody, being an Irishman and Nicholls and the McMullens. We weren't so sure about the McMullens.
VH: No, no, they were not your same lot.
AT: Not in the same category.
VH: Wasn't there another one? Was there another brewery in Hertford?
PR: Nicholls, McMullens, of course, survives. Nicholls was the last independent brewery, apart from McMullens. Mrs. McPherson, Madelaine McPherson, was the last of the Nicholl's family alive in Hertford. And you remember the brothers, Wallace Nicholls ….
AT: I Don't!
PH: You're a generation back ….
AT: Ahead!
PR: Yes, but the last members of the family have only recently died.
AT: And were they in West Street?
PR: Yes.
AT: Well my father was great friends with them all, he enjoyed it. He wasn’t so sure of the McMullens
VH: and of course in those days there were a lot of pubs in Hertford, many more then
AT: Yes I suppose there were and then of course Daddy got this job from his good friend of Cambridge days. Victor Lytton, Lord Lytton with Trust Houses.
VH: So he was in with the breweries.
AT: He was in with the pubs so to speak.
PR: Yes yes
AT: and did all the home counties, went as far as Windsor and it was great fun I used to go with him very often he had a car provided and it was always great fun because I mean we would have a posh lunch you see …..
VH: You had a day out
AT: A day out yes. Course, I never went to school. We had governesses.
VH: What was your governess called?
AT: Miss Duncan. She was a darling. She used to live in Ware Road. Before that we had resident French governesses who were really rather ….
VH: Did you have a French governess in South Africa? You had a governess, didn't you?
AT: Oh, we had a sort of nursery governess, yes. Fawfie! Miss Fawcett, yes! She taught me my ABC and everything else, yes. I always wished I had gone to school I think it must have been great fun but mummy never went to school so they didn’t think they could afford 3 daughters at school
VH: Extraordinary isn’t it
AT: Yes nowadays it just happens, all the marvellous games and things you get at school that’s what I ………
VH: What you missed you think
AT: yes we used to have dancing classes at Hertingfordbury Memorial Hall every Monday. Went down in the pony trap in tidy clothes whatever the weather
VH: Oh dear yes…you have had an interesting life Anne
AT: Yes mixed up, a mixed up life but it has been good fun
VH: Glad we have got Peter here to keep it local but we have got the rest of it. If you had about a day and a half Peter you could do the rest.
PR: It’s the Hertford bit……….
AT: That’s what you want…………….well you ought to go and see Kitty
VH: What about the rivers in Hertford? Did you ever row on the rivers? Were you ever allowed to go canoeing or on a barge?
AT: No! We used to go and bathe in the Lea at Lea Side. Do you know where Lea Side is? I don't know who lives there now but there's Roxford up above, on the hill. A lovely old house, and
Lea Side Cottage further down.
VH: Would that be Hartham?
PR: No, no, it's on the Lower Road to Hatfield between …. you can get to it from St. Mary's Lane, Hertingfordbury.
AT: There's the bridge you go over fast; it's rather fun. That's where we used to go and swim. It was muddy and cold and I didn't like it very much. Sometimes we went to the baths in Hertford. That was more fun, the swimming baths down by the Great Eastern, wasn't it?
VH: Of course, the Great Eastern was working then. I mean, you could catch a train from Hertford to· Hatfield, couldn't you?
AT: Oh, yes. Doesn't it any more?
PR: Well, yes, the Great Eastern is still there. The Great Northern is the one that's closed.
VH: There were three.
PR: Well, yes.
AT: Three in Hertford.
PR: There's Hertford North, which brings the line through here to Bayford. But before this line to Bayford was built you went to London from the Great Northern Station which was at Hartham,
via Hertingfordbury and Cole Green and Hatfield.
AT: Yes that's right, all that way round. Yes, I can just remember that. And the excitement when this one was opened.
PR: Yes, yes, you'd remember the arrival of the trains at Bayford.
VH: But going down the hill to Bayford Station, you always said that I suppose it was the Domain Saunders.
AT: The ones that lived at Fanshawes?
VH: That they wanted the trees ….
AT: Oh, yes, planted everything out they could.
VH: So they couldn't see them from their house, Fanshawes, didn't you say?
AT: Oh, yes, and they didn't want to see this road very much. Planted everything, everywhere! Shut the world away! Then wondered why people weren't very keen to go and work there!
VH: But you couldn't actually drive …. there wasn't the main road from Brickendon to Bayford in those days, was there?
AT: No! We either had to go down to Hertford or round by the Broxbourne Lanes and Ashendene Lodge.
VH: Yes, you couldn't actually drive from this village to Bayford, at that stage.
AT: Well, we could on a cart track, more or less.
VH: Yes, but there wasn't a ….
AT: No, and Uncle Harry gave the land down to the station and then they made that road down from Bayford. And then, you see, we used to have to go through Fanshawes to get up to Brickendon. We didn't get the road up to Brickendon for a long, long time. Now when you come out of the station you turn left and go down and up the hill on· the right. That was never there. I remember that being made. And they used to bring down rubble from London and places, and we used to go and search through it and find little bits of big houses they'd been pulling down in London. Bits of marble from Grosvenor House or somewhere …. When they made the road. from Bayford Station up to Brickendon.
VH: So, originally, you would have come out of Bayford Station, turned left and gone through Fanshawes? Was that the only way?
AT: With their permission, yes. The Barclays lived at Fanshawes and they didn't mind us going there. That was our only way to get up into the village, unless you walked on a footpath. Oh yes, we were very cut off. And then, the excitement when the road was made up to the Green. I forget. It was in the twenties, I suppose. Yes, we just took it for granted;- as young people.
VH: Some of the railway line, when it was made, I suppose, belonged to the Bayfordbury estate.
AT: A lot of it did, yes.
VH: When it ran through there they would have had to have sold ….
AT: Oh yes, they must have sold a lot of land, yes And Horns Mill, you see, all those …. A lot of it there belonged to Bayfordbury.
VH: Did. it? They owned Horns Mill, did. They?
AT: No,. they didn't own it but they had land right up to it.
VH: Do you remember the glove factory there, Anne, at Horns Mill?
AT: Yes, and the smell of it, too.
VH: Was it revolting?
AT: Skins! Yes the skins!
VH: If the wind was in the wrong direction.
AT: Pretty powerful
VH: Even I remember that. So it was, sort of, 1968 it was closed, something like that.
PR: I think so, yes. From Hertingfordbury Road we watched. We could see the chimney, the very, high chimney to the leather, glove factory and watch the smoke billowing out. That was a view across the Lea from our side.
VH: I wonder how long it was there, the glove factory?
AT: Webb's was the name, wasn't it?
VH: Could you go and buy gloves at the mill?
AT: Oh, I don't suppose Mummy would but I don't know if one could. No, we had chilly gloves from Graveson's ....
VH: Not nice smart leather ones
AT: No no ………………Funny if you think about it. What was I going to ask you? Who's at Lea Side now? Is it the Bagnall’s, still?
PR: Yes!
AT: And who's up at Roxford?
PR: I'm not sure who's at Roxford.
VH: That's changed hands quite a lot recently.
AT: It has. Such a nice house.
VH: I don't know who's there now. It was such a beautiful house until about nineteen, I don't know when it was, but somebody came along and built a studio on the back of it. Have you ever seen it? Very modern! It was an architect, I think.
Transcribers Note: Maxwell Fry and Ashleigh Havingden
PR: There's a public footpath nearby and you walk quite close to it.
AT: And then Daddy and Mummy were very tempted to farm when they came back, go on farming, and they nearly, I think, we nearly did. What's the Bayfordbury farm beyond? Water ...?
PR: Water Hall.
AT: Water Hall. Farm.
VH: Oh did you? Was that part of the estate, then?
AT: That was all part.
VH: Oh, that was even included into Bayford, was it? Of course, that was before they started taking the gravel out. Water Hall is nothing but gravel now.
AT: Ruined now! It's all gravel where the river used. to go. There have been a lot of changes. Mummy must have seen an awful lot of changes
VH: Oh she must have done yes
AT: But I don’t think I have got any old books of Bayfordbury or anything I can give you to read about or look up’
VH: No well as Peter says it’s more fun just chatting
AT: Just chat yes
PR: It’s been super. We musn’t take more of your time,
AT: Oh no it’s aright
PR: It’s been absolutely fascinating
AT: Well come again if you think of anything or want me to enlarge on anything
PR: We will take up your suggestion and just see if your sister will…………
AT: Oh do get hold of Kitty I will give you very good references. She is a funny old thing but she knows far more than I do.
VH: I will have word with her, if Anne asks here she will probably say no
AT: Quite likely I am a younger sister you see ************* she has lived here all her life in this area
VH: She has yes as you say with no…..
AT: Well she was born in South Africa like I was, we were all four born in South Africa all four of us……………….I think mummy was awfully brave to go out there with my father
VH: Oh I do from Bayfordbury
AT: From Bayfordbury yes
VH: She wouldn’t have known what she was going out to
AT: No no
VH: Did she go out on a ship?
AT: Yes Union Castle liner yes
VH: Off you went must have taken weeks
AT: About 3 weeks I think or something like that yes Kitty will tell you much more about all that
VH: We must try and get Kitty to do it then Anne.
AT: yes do and if she says anything to me I will back you up like anything
VH: If there is anything……..
AT: Well if you want to come back and ask again about anything do
PR: Yes well maybe something
AT: When you run it…………
VH: Well if there’s anything to do, particularly to do with the older houses Anne would remember it I mean all sorts of things……………..
AT: Yes! I don't remember Fanshawes being built at all but I do remember the people who lived there and the people who lived at Brickendon Grange, the Trotters.
VH: The Trotters lived there did they?
AT: Yes, they were living there when we came back and the funny thing about that house is that the staircase is in a. tower because the architect forgot to put a. staircase in and added on a tower with a circular staircase in it. That's what I was always told. But Bayfordbury remained the same all through.
VH: We went there not long ago to have a look at it. 'Cos Anne and her sister Kitty have both planted – since Rialto's done it up. They've both planted a cedar tree and it's got a little plaque
there to say the last two, well, they were the two remaining ….
PR: I think the Hertfordshire Mercury ….
AT: Did it write it up ……Oh good
VH: Sometime or other……I mean I dare say, Bayfordbury is ………..Anne's got the old Country Life of nineteen twenty something other. I mean a whole thing on Bay'ordbury. So, I mean there's a lot of history there.
AT: Yes, it's great· fun. Anyway, we're very proud of it.
VH: Anyway Peter has that been ………
AT: Any help…..where is this all going to be published? Or not……a record is it
PR: Its never very flattering to say actually it will go into the museum …it’s a very very dated thing but we are talking about very recent memories aren’t we and I think in years to come……..
AT: Yes somebody will be interested………..
VH: So people will be able to pick it up in 50 years, 100 years and say Oh my goodness..
PR: Well they will say “Mowing by pony” and they will hardly be able to believe it. We can only just………..
AT and VH: I know yes yes
AT: And the first wireless and the first crystal sets we all shared, do you remember?
VH: No I don’t remember that
AT: Oh, Uncle Harry's chauffeur made us a crystal set and we used to unpick it and each have one thing and listen and look at each other and laugh. It was most exciting……there we are
END OF TAPE